Joe Schwarz: School district’s failure not far away

The closure of Fremont and Urbandale elementary schools by the Battle Creek Board of Education represents an appalling example of reflexive short-sightedness.

What in the world were they thinking? The answer, in the opinion of hundreds of residents of the Fremont neighborhood: they weren’t.

The heart and soul of any neighborhood is its elementary school. Take away the school, the neighborhood suffers and start to deteriorate. Housing values drop, families leave and student count in the district falls. (Full disclosure: I live in the Fremont district on Battle Creek’s north side. I attended Fremont School, as did my daughter and my brother and sister.)

Families might move to different school districts in the area, or perhaps sell their homes and move to another community or take advantage of Michigan’s ill-conceived and destructive “schools of choice” statute. That law allows students to transfer to a different school in a different district and, by the way, take with them the per student “state aid fund.” In any given year, that is about $9,000 per student.

In the past 20 years, the Battle Creek Public Schools have been hemorrhaging students to surrounding districts. The number of students who reside in the Battle Creek district but attend Lakeview, Harper Creek or Pennfield schools is mind-boggling.

This is due, in part, to parental dissatisfaction with the Battle Creek schools, some of it justified, most of it not, but equally — or perhaps even more — to the utterly predatory behavior of the other districts in accepting schools of choice transfers.

All of the students displaced from Fremont and Urbandale are not going to stay in the Battle Creek school district. Many will attend Lakeview, Harper Creek or Pennfield rather than be bused across town to a school they don’t wish to attend in a neighborhood that isn’t theirs.

As an example, in my medical practice, I have recently spoken with four parents who live in the Fremont district and have their children in the Fremont school. All four will be sending their children to schools in districts outside BCPS or to private/charter schools come September.

And while the “choice” law requires the receiving district to affirmatively accept, or to refuse, the “choice” students, at $9,000 per student, don’t count on many refusals.

The number of “choice” students who live in the Battle Creek district but attend school in another district should be widely circulated. To this date, these numbers — while available to the public — have not been published. They should be. As an example, scores of students who live in the Battle Creek district attend Lakeview Schools.

The Battle Creek Public Schools recently reported that some 223 fewer students will enroll district-wide in the fall of 2016. Many in that number will be “choice” students headed to surrounding districts. This is a trend that must stop, but barring a change in the “choice” statute, almost certainly won’t. What to do?

Le us be honest with each other. It is an utterly undeniable fact that a significant number of students transferring out of the Battle Creek district, both white and African American, do so on a racial basis. That is an embarrassing and terribly disappointing fact in 2016, but it is true.

Fremont School had a great mixture of students — Caucasian, African American, Latino and Asian. It is a fine school with a dedicated corps of teachers in the strongest and most stable neighborhood in “older” Battle Creek. Students and parents loved Fremont.

So, in its unfathomable wisdom, the school board closes and school and chases even more students to outlying districts. Go figure!

With the decline in student numbers in the Battle Creek schools and the seemingly endless enthusiasm of adjoining districts to take “choice” students and the $9,000 per year they bring, some major problems — such as the failure of a school district — are not that far off.

Barring some unforeseen circumstance, the greater Battle Creek area, with its four public school districts and mixture of private schools and charters, will inevitably be forced into a redrawing of district lines and restructuring within the next 10 to 20 years, if not before.

That will be a hard, but utterly necessary, pill for many to swallow. The willy-nilly closure of neighborhood schools such as Fremont is not the answer. It is a cop-out — a refusal to face the realities inchoate in decreasing enrollment, increasing racial diversity and inadequate funding.

Emblazoned above the columns on Angell Hall at the University of Michigan are these words from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787: “Religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

True in 1787! True today!

Battle Creek is a good community with a rich history — and with a bright future if we deal with our present problems in a manner that speaks of the goodness and generosity of our people. There are some solutions!

In our neighboring and sometimes rival city of Kalamazoo, the Kalamazoo Promise, providing a four-year scholarship to Kalamazoo Public School graduates and funded by individuals and charitable organizations based in Kalamazoo, has just celebrated its 10th year of existence.

To date, more than 4,000 students have used Promise scholarships. More than 1,000 Promise scholars have completed degrees, and the enrollment of in Kalamazoo Public Schools has grown by 24 percent since 2006.

In Battle Creek, we have the potential for a similar scholarship program. The funders are here, and, yes, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation can be and should be the major funder. Additional Battle Creek-based nonprofits and individuals would — and should – also participate.

School district reorganizations and unifications are not a new concept. It is inevitably going to happen in greater Battle Creek. The greater Battle Creek community along with our four school districts must face the facts. The conversation should start now!

As Benjamin Franklin so presciently said more than two centuries ago, “We must, indeed, all hand together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

Joe Schwarz is a former Battle Creek mayor, state legislator and congressman.